Oxford Reading Tree Dictionary
EN ANGLAIS – Like a new book
Easy to use – Simple, clear, and in alphabetical order, 300 words are supported by colour pictures featuring all the favourite Oxford Reading Tree characters. ….
Hungry, hungry Sharks !
EN ANGLAIS
Did you know that there were sharks on earth even before dinosaurs? For more than twenty years, Hungry, Hungry Sharks! has been a staple nonfiction title in the Step into Reading line. Nothing is more exciting than sharks, and this title is packed with amazing facts about these fearsome underseas predators. And now it’s even more exciting, with dynamic new cover art to attract a whole new generation of early readers.
EN ANGLAIS
Jack and Annie don’t need another mummy. But that’s what they get when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to ancient Egypt. There they meet a long-dead queen who needs their help. Will Jack and Annie be able to solve the puzzle, or will they end up as mummies themselves?
EN ANGLAIS
That’s what Jack and Annie find when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the Middle Ages for another wild adventure. In the Great Gall of the castle, a feast is under way. But Jack and Annie aren’t exactly welcome guests!
Killing time
En Anglais – Information flows freely in 2023, but is all–or « any »–of it accurate? Criminal profiler Dr. Gideon Wolfe investigates the murder of a friend in New York City when he is suddenly caught up in the company of a beautiful woman, her ingenious brother, and a band of techno-terrorists at war with the world itself.
Silent spring
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water.
Loves music , loves to dance
New York’s trendy magazines are a source of peril when a killer enacts a bizarre dance of death, using the personal ads to lure his victims… After college, best friends Erin Kelley and Darcy Scott move to the city to pursue exciting careers; Erin is a promising jewelry designer, Darcy finds success as a decorator. On a lark, Darcy persuades Erin to help their TV producer friend research the kinds of people who place personal ads. It seems like innocent fun…until Erin disappears. Erin’s body is found on an abandoned Manhattan pier — on one foot is her own shoe, on the other, a high-heeled dancing slipper. Soon after, startling communiques from the killer reveal that Erin is not the first victim of this « dancing shoe murderer. » And, if the killer has his way, she won’t be his last. Next on his death list is Darcy.
We’ll meet again
The mistress of high tension” (The New Yorker) and undisputed Queen of Suspense Mary Higgins Clark brings us another New York Times bestselling novel that she “prepares so carefully and executes with such relish” (The New York Times Book Review) about the murder of a respected doctor—and his beautiful young wife charged with the crime. Dr. Gary Lasch, famous Greenwich, Connecticut doctor and founder of the HMO Remington Health Management, is found dead in his home, his skull crushed by a blow with a heavy bronze sculpture, and his wife, Molly, in bed covered with his blood. It was the Lasches’ housekeeper, Edna Barry, who made the grisly discovery the morning after Molly’s unexpectedly early return from Cape Cod, where she had gone to seclude herself upon learning of her husband’s infidelity. As the evidence against Molly grows, her lawyer plea-bargains a manslaughter charge to avoid a murder conviction.
The shadow of your smile
At age eighty-two and in failing health, Olivia Morrow knows she has little time left. The last of her line, she faces a momentous choice: expose a long-held family secret, or take it with her to her grave. Olivia has in her possession letters from her deceased cousin Catherine, a nun, now being considered for beatification by the Catholic Church—the final step before sainthood. In her lifetime, Sister Catherine had founded seven hospitals for disabled children. Now the cure of a four-year-old boy dying of brain cancer is being attributed to her. After his case was pronounced medically hopeless, the boy’s desperate mother had organized a prayer crusade to Sister Catherine, leading to his miraculous recovery.
The lost years
Under the promise of secrecy, Jonathan attempts to confirm his findings with several other biblical experts. But on the eve before his own murder, he confides to Father Aiden O’Brien, a family friend, that one of those whom he trusted most is determined to keep it from being returned to the Vatican. The next evening Jonathan Lyons is found shot to death in his New Jersey home. His daughter, twenty-seven year old Mariah, finds her father’s body sprawled over his desk in his study, a fatal bullet wound in the back of his neck, and her mother, Kathleen, an Alzheimer’s victim, hiding in the study closet, incoherent and clutching the murder weapon. The police suspect that Kathleen, who in her lucid moments knows that Jonathan was involved with a much younger woman Lily Stewart, has committed the murder.
All by myself, alone
A glamorous cruise on a luxurious ocean liner turns deadly in the latest mystery from Queen of Suspense and #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark. Fleeing a disastrous and humiliating arrest of her husband-to-be on the eve of their wedding, Celia Kilbride, a gems and jewelry expert, hopes to escape from public attention by lecturing on a brand-new cruise ship—the Queen Charlotte. On board she meets eighty-six-year-old Lady Emily Haywood, “Lady Em,” as she is known throughout the world. Immensely wealthy, Lady Em is the owner of a priceless emerald necklace that she intends to leave to the Smithsonian after the cruise.
Daddy’s gone A – hunting
What was Kate Connelly—a tall, glamorous CPA—doing in her family’s antique furniture museum when it exploded into flames in the middle of the night? Why was Gus, a disgruntled retired employee, with her? Now Gus is dead, and Kate lies in a coma, unable to explain the tragedy’s mysterious link to a decades-old missing persons case. Nor to warn her sister what could happen next. In a novel of dazzling suspense and excitement, Mary Higgins Clark once again demonstrates the mastery of her craft that has made her books international bestsellers for years. She presents the reader with a perplexing mystery, a puzzling question of identity, and a fascinating cast of characters—one of whom may just be a ruthless killer.
All dressed in white
Five years ago, Amanda Pierce was excitedly preparing to marry her college sweetheart. She and Jeffrey had already battled through sickness and health, although their livelihoods looked set as Amanda was due to inherit her father’s successful garment company. Then Amanda disappeared the night of her bachelorette party. In present-day New York, Laurie Moran realizes a missing bride is the perfect cold case for her Under Suspicion television series to investigate. By recreating the night of the disappearance at the wedding’s Florida resort with Amanda’s friends and family, Laurie hopes to solve the case. Laurie and her Under Suspicion host Alex Buckley soon find themselves overwhelmed with theories and rumors about the “beloved” bride from those who were involved with the wedding, including Amanda’s former fiancé, a jealous sister, and plenty of playboy groomsmen.
The melody lingers on
As the sole assistant to a famous upscale interior designer, Lane Harmon is accustomed to visiting opulent homes. So her latest job at a modest New Jersey townhouse is unusual. Then she learns the home belongs to the wife of disgraced finance magnate Parker Bennett, who vanished two years earlier, along with the five billion dollar hedge fund he managed. The debate over whether Bennett was suicidal or staged his disappearance still continues. Both his clients and the federal government want to trace the money and find him. But Lane is surprisingly moved by Mrs. Bennett’s steadfast faith in her husband’s innocence. Gradually, Lane is also drawn to the Bennetts’ son, Mark, who is equally determined to prove his father is not guilty. What she doesn’t realize is the closer she gets to the notorious family, the more her life—and that of her five-year-old daughter—is in jeopardy.
Just take my heart
After famous actress Natalie Raines is found in her home, dying from a gunshot wound, police immediately suspect her theatrical agent and jealous soon-to-be-ex-husband, Gregg Aldrich. But no charges are brought against him until two years later, when a career criminal suddenly claims Aldrich had tried to hire him to kill her. The case is a plum assignment for attractive thirty-two-year-old assistant prosecutor Emily Wallace. She spends long hours preparing for the trial, and unaware of a seemingly well-meaning neighbor’s violent past, gives him a key to her home to care for her dog.
Alaska
En Anglais In this sweeping epic of the northernmost American frontier, James A. Michener guides us through Alaska’s fierce terrain and history, from the long-forgotten past to the bustling present. As his characters struggle for survival, Michener weaves together the exciting high points of Alaska’s story: its brutal origins; the American acquisition; the gold rush; the tremendous growth and exploitation of the salmon industry; the arduous construction of the Alcan Highway, undertaken to defend the territory during World War II. A spellbinding portrait of a human community fighting to establish its place in the world, Alaska traces a bold and majestic saga of the enduring spirit of a land and its people.
The ancient and secret knowledge isn’t a secret anymore. Has the new paradigm arrived, or have the pieces just been put back together ? Realising your full potential has never seen it unveiled before – no wonder the churches have bee worried. This is where we all end up whether we know about it or not, so why not find out in advance ?
English and scottish ballads
Thirty-eight anonymous ballads, mainly dating from the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries – The golden age of balladry- Long-established favourites like sir patrick spens are included alongside less familiar examples. In his introduction and notes Robert Graves dsiplays the liveliness and erudition that characterize his critical writing.
Hoa Hakananai’a
This concise book tells the story of Hoa Hakananai’a, a large stone statue from Easter Island, which became part of the collections of the British Museum in 1869. It examines Hoa Hakananai’a’s significance within the ceremonial village of Orongo on Easter Island and tells the history of how and when the statue was brought to England aborad HMS Topaze . The production of sacred moai stone icons on the island, their aesthetic and social context, is followed by a description of Hoa Hakananai’a and especially the carvings on her back, linked to birdman symbolism.
E-(t) mail
Jason gets an email from an alien—definitely a prank call he thinks, particularly as it asks for the mating habits of earthlings. However, it becomes serious when the mystery sender starts hacking into his computer and over-writing his science project.
With its expertly text and large clear colour plates (persian and other oriental carpets for today ) offers a detailed survey of the various persian carpets currently to be found in the trade. Apart from the present situation it discusses also the artistic and general history of carpets. This book is an invaluable source of information to anyone who owns a persian carpets or intends to buy one.
Shaw on Theatre
60 years of collected letters, speeches, and articles. Contains:Appendix to The Quintessence of Ibsenism, A Dramatic Realist to his Critics, Preface to The Theatrical « World » of 1894, How to Lecture on Ibsen, The Problem Play-A Symposium, The Censorship of the Stage in England, On Being a Lady in High Comedy, Why Cyril Maude Did Not Produce You Never Can Tell, How to Make Plays Readable, The Dying Tongue of Great Elizabeth, Letters to Louis Calvert on Playing Undershaft, What Is the Finest Dramatic Situation?, Mr. Trench’s Dramatic Values, On the Principles that Govern the Dramatist, To Audiences at Major Barbara, On Cutting Shakespear, Lord Grey, Shakespear, Mr Archer, and Others, I Am a Classic But Am I a Shakespear Thief?, Letter to J.T. Grein, Shakespear: A Standard Text, On Clive Bell’s Article, The Art of Rehearsal, Shakespear and the Stratford-upon-Avon Theatre: A Plea for Reconstruction, On Printed Plays, John Barrymore’s Hamlet, Theatres and Reviews Then and Now, The Colossus Speaks, Playhouses and Plays, Mr. Shaw on Mr. Shaw, Bernard Shaw Talks about Actors and Acting, Speech as Guest of Honor at London Critics Circle Annual Luncheon, On Gordon Craig’s Henry Irving, My First Talkie, Gordon Craig and the Shaw-Terr Letters, Arms and the Man on the Screen, Too True to be Good, An Aside, Dramatic Antiquities at Malvern, Playwrights and Amateurs, The Simple Truth of the Matter, This Year’s Program, Saint Joan Banned.
Coronation
Imagine seeing the Queen that close as she goes by in her golden carriage! The kiddies will have something to tell their kiddies, won’t they? And a drink of real champagne to go with it! Coronation Day, 2 June 1953! A humble, working-class family from Sheffield is desperate to buy train tickets to London to see the coronation, but doing so means forsaking their annual seaside holiday. After some scrimping and saving, and a family meeting in which the enthusiasm of the children overrules the reluctance of their long-suffering mother and grandmother, the Clagg family take the plunge and buy premium, champagne tickets for the big day.
Merry mister Meddle
Poor Mister Meddle is a very merry pixie always willing to help out and do good deeds, but he never quite gets it right. One day his meddling gets him into trouble with Aunt Jemima – he serves her up a treacle pudding covered in glue and gets chased home by a Biggle
Aroma, the cultural history of smell
En anglais – Smell is a social phenomenon, given particular meanings and values by different cultures. Odours form the building blocks of cosmologies, class hierarchies, and political odours. They can enforce social structures or transgress them, unite people or divide them, empower or disempower. The authors argue that the sociology of smell is repressed in the modern West, and its social history ignored. This book breaks the « olfactory silence » of modernity. It offers the first comprehensive exploration of the cultural role of odours in Western history – from antiquity to the present. It also covers a wide variey of non-Western societies. Its topics range from the medieval concept of the « odour of sanctity », to the aromatherapies of South America, and from olfactory stereotypes of gender and ethnicity in the modern West to the role of smell in postmodernity. Its subject matter will fascinate anyone who likes to nose around in the inner workings of culture.
Journey through Kenya
Colonized by the British for more than 50 years, ending with independence in 1963, Kenya draws visitors from all over the world to see its fascinating mixture of landscape, wildlife and people. The snows of Mount Kenya astride the equator, sixteen national parks and over 300 miles of silver-sanded coast make Kenya one of the great holiday resorts – with surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving and big game fishing among the attractions which have lured such authors as Hemingway and Ruark. Blending historical fact with anecdote and imagery, and with an introduction by late film star William Holden, Mohamed Amin and Duncan Willetts’ 150 color illustrations and Brian Tetley’s text paint a vivid and exciting picture of an unforgettable nation.
Baby and toddler food
A guide to foods for babies and very young children. It includes recipes, coverage of weaning and first foods, menus, time-saving recipe ideas, a guide to the nutritional needs of the growing child, and information on food allergies.
The silkworm
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives—meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced. When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before…
The complaints
Nobody likes The Complaints–they’re the cops who investigate other cops. It’s a department known within the force as « The Dark Side, » and it’s where Malcolm Fox works. He’s a serious man with a father in a nursing home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship, frustrating problems about which he cannot seem to do anything. Then the reluctant Fox is given a new case. There’s a cop named Jamie Breck, and he’s dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. As Fox takes on the job, he learns that there’s more to Breck than anyone thinks–dangerous knowledge, especially when a vicious murder takes place far too close to home.
Great little sayings
» The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quatations. »
Triple homicide
JAMES PATTERSON’S GREATEST DETECTIVES TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME! 3 electrifying thrillers with Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, and the Women’s Murder Club, DETECTIVE CROSS: An Alex Cross Story, An anonymous caller has promised to set off deadly bombs in Washington, DC. A cruel hoax or the real deal? By the time Alex Cross and his wife, Bree Stone, uncover the chilling truth, it may already be too late….THE MEDICAL EXAMINER: A Women’s Murder Club Story (with Maxine Paetro), A woman checks into a hotel room and entertains a man who is not her husband. A shooter blows away the lover and wounds the millionairess, leaving her for dead. Is it the perfect case for the Women’s Murder Club–or just the most twisted? MANHUNT: A Michael Bennett Story (with James O. Born) Someone attacked the Thanksgiving Day Parade directly in front of Michael Bennett and his family. The television news called it « holiday terror »–Michael Bennett calls it personal. The hunt is on….
The master of Whitehall
After the brutal murder of her parents, Katelyn Corbin, a thoroughly modern twenty-one year old college senior, faces the prospect of restarting her life. After arriving in Charleston, Katelyn meets James Dubois and soon falls madly in love with him. He is a handsome young widower and wealthy patron of her school with an old world aristocratic bearing. She is deeply intrigued by this mysterious man who lives alone in the beautifully restored colonial plantation of Whitehall Manor.
But James is not the man she thinks he is. Dark secrets begin to come to the surface. Katelyn soon begins to develop a series of unsettling questions about her new love. She begins searching her own soul for answers, forcing her to question whether or not to continue their relationship. Katelyn confronts James with her questions and His confirmation validates her fears that he is indeed the man she fears him to be. His revelations shock her, forcing her to acknowledge things about herself and her world that she never thought possible. She discovers that old folklore and fairy-tales are real in a world where vampires live and love side by side with humans.
Windfall
Penny Vincenzi’s WINDFALL is a rich, absorbing tale of temptation, ambition and desire for any reader of Elizabeth Buchan, Harriet Evans or Jilly Cooper. ‘Reading her is an addictive experience’ Elizabeth Buchan Cassia Fallon has always been the perfect country doctor’s wife, performing each menial task with willingness and grace, even though her desire to become a doctor herself has been thwarted by lack of money. Then her godmother leaves her a fortune. With her new-found wealth, Cassia is finally free to do as she pleases, and resumes her own medical career as Dr Cassia Tallow with a passion. But it soon becomes clear that her legacy may not be such a blessing after all, for Cassia begins to question the strength of her marriage, her future and exactly where the money has come from. a rich, absorbing tale of temptation, ambition and desire.
Leaving the atocha station
Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when our experiences are mediated by language, technology, medication, and the arts? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader’s projections? Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam’s « research » becomes a meditation on the possibility of the genuine in the arts and beyond: are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? A witness to the 2004 Madrid train bombings and their aftermath, does he participate in historic events or merely watch them pass him by? In prose that veers between the comic and tragic, the self-contemptuous and the inspired, Leaving the Atocha Station is a portrait of the artist as a young man in an age of Google searches, pharmaceuticals, and spectacle.
Though they were raised in the Old World traditions of their loving immigrant family, tempestuous Natasha and cool, classy Rachel are ready for a new world of love….Stormy Natasha’s wild, fiery beauty captivates Spencer Kimball. But will the handsome single dad prove the one man capable of breaching her well-fortified heart and Taming Natasha? When rugged Zack Muldoon needs a tough, no-nonsense lawyer, Rachel’s not what he has in mind till he discovers there’s more to this long-legged beauty than meets the eye.and finds himself Falling for Rachel.
The hours
In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she attempts to make a start on her new novel. A young wife and mother, broiling in a suburb of 1940s Los Angeles, yearns to escape and read her precious copy of Mrs Dalloway. And Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her smart Greenwich village apartment in 1990s New York to buy flowers for a party she is hosting for a dying friend. The Hours recasts the classic story of Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway in a startling new light. Moving effortlessly across the decades and between England and America, this exquisite novel intertwines the worlds of three unforgettable women.
Spear Head
This is a fast-paced thriller full of violence, intrigue and passion. It draws a portrait of modern South Africa and centres round the figure of the imprisoned leader of the People’s Congress, Nelson Kumalo. The author has also written The Wilby Conspiracy.
Ender’s game
Andrew « Ender » Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast. But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military’s purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine’s abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.
Fires of rapture
PASSIONATE REVOLUTION…PASSIONATE LOVE…Seeking a new life in the New World of America, raven-haired Rebecca Blair loved liberty almost as much as she loved one man — lean, rugged Colonel Gordon Meade of His Majesty’s army. As Americans struggled violently for independence from British rule, Rebecca felt her loyalties change from Crown to Colonies, and her love tested by the fires of war and the cruelty of men. And as freedom-loving rebels surge to victory, Rebecca finds passion at last in a single, glorious moment of unexpected ecstasy…
The master of Whitehall : Lexi’s legacy
Lexi’s story is one of discovery and growth as a shy and sheltered academic young girl faces the unknowns of an adult world. After receiving her life-long dream of teaching history in a European college, Lexi begins to settle comfortably into adulthood. She is happy and content with her life surrounded by other scholars at the University of Berlin. When she is suddenly and unexpectedly diagnosed with terminal cancer, her dream crumbles and her life begins to collapse around her … she shouldn’t be dying at twenty-two … it’s just not right … it’s just not fair. But amid the clouds of hopeless despair, a light begins to shine and a new world suddenly opens to her. Lexi discovers an unexpected cure from an unlikely source and two best friends become eternal friends. Lexi tells her tale of life, the despair of losing one and the joy of finding another, as she leaves behind her human life and begins her journey into a new immortal life. She recounts the changes that take place as she enters a supernatural world she never knew existed. Lexi discovers there’s much to learn about her new world as she joins Katelyn and James at Whitehall Plantation. Travel with Lexi as she takes you on an adventure of life changing proportions; watch as she grows and matures into the life of a fledgling vampire. Listen as she tells you about how her life changes … about love … found … lost … and found again.
The pigeon project
The secret. Every man and woman has dreamed of it. Now it’s within reach … and they’ll do anything to possess it. The screen goddess. The contessa. The wily priest. The American public relations man looking for a cause. And his lover who may die for it. They are all caught between life’s wildest dream … and death.
A tree grows in Brooklyn
The American classic about a young girl’s coming of age at the turn of the century. « A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life…If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience…It is a poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships. The Nolans lived in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn from 1902 until 1919…Their daughter Francie and their son Neely knew more than their fair share of the privations and sufferings that are the lot of a great city’s poor. Primarily this is Francie’s book. She is a superb feat of characterization, an imaginative, alert, resourceful child. And Francie’s growing up and beginnings of wisdom are the substance of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. » New York Times
A time of war
From the desolation of shattered warsaw to the iced-over hell of Finland’s winter war: from the bloody beaches of Dunkirk to the burning deserts of North Africa: in the towns and forest, on the sea and in the air, an iresistible tide of war sweeps eight young men towards theirs various destinies.
The true meaning of smekday
It all starts with a school essay. When twelve-year-old Gratuity (“Tip”) Tucci is assigned to write five pages on “The True Meaning of Smekday” for the National Time Capsule contest, she’s not sure where to begin. When her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck? Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge, bizarre spaceships descended on the Earth and the aliens – called Boov – abducted her mother? Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it “Smekland” (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod? In any case, Gratuity’s story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo.; a futile journey south to find Gratuity’s mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom; a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious; and an outrageous plan to save the Earth from yet another alien invasion.
S.
S. is the story of Sarah P. Worth, a thoroughly modern spiritual seeker who has become enamored of a Hindu mystic called the Arhat. A native New Englander, she goes west to join his ashram in Arizona, and there struggles alongside fellow sannyasins (pilgrims) in the difficult attempt to subdue ego and achieve moksha (salvation, release from illusion). “S.” details her adventures in letters and tapes dispatched to her husband, her daughter, her brother, her dentist, her hairdresser, and her psychiatrist—messages cleverly designed to keep her old world in order while she is creating for herself a new one. This is Hester Prynne’s side of the triangle described by Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter; it is also a burlesque of the quest for enlightenment, and an affectionate meditation on American womanhood.
“The Flamboya Tree is a fascinating story that will leave the reader informed about a missing piece of the World War II experience, and in awe of one family’s survival.” — It is a well-known fact that war, any war, is senseless and degrading. When innocent people are brought into that war because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it becomes incomprehensible. Java, 1942, was such a place and time, and we were those innocent people.” Fifty years after the end of World War II, Clara Olink Kelly sat down to write a memoir that is both a fierce and enduring testament to a mother’s courage and a poignant record of an often overlooked chapter of the war. As the fighting in the Pacific spread, four-year-old Clara Olink and her family found their tranquil, pampered lives on the beautiful island of Java torn apart by the invasion of Japanese troops. Clara’s father was taken away, forced to work on the Burma railroad. For Clara, her mother, and her two brothers, the younger one only six weeks old, an insistent knock on the door ended all hope of escaping internment in a concentration camp. For nearly four years, they endured starvation, filth-ridden living conditions, sickness, and the danger of violence from their prison guards. Clara credits her mother with their survival: Even in the most perilous of situations, Clara’s mother never compromised her beliefs, never admitted defeat, and never lost her courage. Her resilience sustained her three children through their frightening years in the camp.
A fairy frost
Step into reading !
It’s a chilly day in Pixie Hollow, and Rani has decided to throw a frost party! Rani and the other water talents freeze the pond and invite all their friends for a day of ice-skating and hot cocoa. But when the pond starts to thaw suddenly, the fairies are in for a surprise! Girls ages 7 to 9 will love this Step 4 reader starring Tinker Bell and the rest of the Disney Fairies.
Well-remembered friends
En Anglais – A fascinating collection of memorial addresses on celebrated lives. The eulogy is a literary form like no other: to compress a lifetime into minutes, to summon the person, what they meant to their friends, colleagues, and sometimes a wider context, to be moved to grief, laughter, sadness and fond memories, to mix praise for virtue with the acknowledgement of foibles, to choose a few anecdotes form the hundreds available, is a very different art to that of the dry obituarist. Angela Huth has collected come of the sparking examples of the form – by or about writers, politicians, actors, sportsmen, academics, and, in some cases, unknown but well-remembered friends. This is a treasury of remembrance, fine writing and good lives.